I’m sharing my recent approach to creating meaningful, demo-driven presentations for the Microsoft Cloud Summit, where I combined PowerApps, Flow, and Azure Functions. By focusing on building reusable demos rather than live-coding, I aim to deepen my own understanding of these technologies while providing lasting value to my audience.

I invite you to explore my hands-on experience with Microsoft Teams immediately after its announcement, including how I rapidly deployed it within my small company. I detail the surprisingly smooth setup process and compare Teams against our existing stack of Yammer, Slack, WhatsApp, and Skype for Business to illustrate its potential for unifying workplace communications.

I share my experience configuring a Synology NAS to synchronize with Microsoft Azure and Dropbox, highlighting how this setup provides robust, local access to cloud-stored files. By detailing the hardware specifications and Cloud Sync settings used in my home lab, I demonstrate how this affordable solution offers reliable redundancy and seamless data management for both personal and professional use.

I am thrilled to share that I have been renewed as a Microsoft MVP for the third year, recognizing my expertise in Office Servers and Services. In this post, I reflect on a busy year of speaking engagements and publications, celebrate the supportive global community I have built, and look forward to future plans after a well-deserved break.

If you are considering taking the SharePoint 2016 beta certification, my recent experience offers practical insights into the exam structure and question styles. I share my observations on the mix of case studies, multiple-choice, and drag-and-drop questions, noting specific frustrations with vague scenarios and the inability to revisit previous answers. Despite these challenges and some outdated content, I leave with a positive impression of the exam's overall relevance to real-world requirements.

Discover my essential checklist for surviving the hectic schedules and technical challenges of conference speaking, drawn from my year-long journey of presenting 30-to-60-minute talks outside my home country. I share practical advice on preparing your topic, licensing your materials for public sharing, and carrying the right adapters to ensure you can connect to any venue's hardware without issue.